The Odyssey of Eros
by Ignobilis
Summary: Alternate Universe - Psyche never attempted to discover the identity of her husband. She was ignorant of his true identity till the day she died... ( duh obviously if she never became a goddess) Eros suffers from chronic amnesia owing to severe heartbreak and loss of his wife. What happens to a god who cannot remember who or what he was? Will he become like the rest of us?
1. The Ancient Legend

_It's an alternate universe. Psyche never attempted to find out Eros' identity. She died without ever knowing the true face of her husband. What happens then?_

* * *

Eros and Psyche (The Official Story at least in this alternate universe)

In the days of ancient Greece, when the gods of Olympus were powerful, it was said that Eros the god of love fell in love with a mortal woman who was so beautiful that men started to worship her instead of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. Naturally the goddess of love was annoyed and commanded Eros to make her fall in love with a terrible, vile monster.

However, the god of love could not bear to lay such an awful fate onto the maiden and fell in love with her instead. As the legend went, he married her in secret and made his home with her in a lush, green valley that was well hidden from the eyes of his mother and the other gods.

Fearing that his secret might be discovered by some god or other, he never showed himself to his wife and only visited her during the dark hours of the night, so she could not look upon his face. He strongly made her promise never to make any attempt to discover his identity or look upon his visage.

She promised him to never make any attempt to discover his identity, and it was said, that even though she bore him many children, who were all very beautiful, she never broke her promise till the day she died, for she was only mortal.

This was however the undoing of Eros, his heart shattered into a thousand pieces and he fell into a deep despair, so that the feathers of his golden wings began to drop and his skin and hair turned a grey pallor, so that in a few years after her death, he looked like a much older man. Of course, by then, Aphrodite discovered her son's secret and as punishment, had him locked away in a grand mansion for a few centuries.

Aphrodite loved her son, but she could not stand his stubborn independence. She wanted a son, but one who would serve her and her goals till the end of time itself, and not a golden god with his own whims and fancies that ran counter to her own schemes.

When she finally allowed her son out of his imprisonment, the golden age of the Greek world had ended and the Olympian gods had waned in their power. However, this all mattered not to Eros, for he had in his despair, wasted away till he lay as a sick man in his bed, unable or unwilling to move. He had apparently tried to kill himself while in his imprisonment, but failed in all attempts. He spent most of his imprisonment chained hand and foot in a dungeon so he could not hurt himself.

In her despair for her son, Aphrodite sought the help of Hades, lord of the Underworld, in locating Psyche, his son's wife and lost love. However, by then, the maiden had died and gone to the Asphodel fields many times and had been reincarnated and was lost in the teaming sea of humanity. There was nothing left to be done, except hope that Eros would get over his lost wife.

In order to spare the god of love the pain of loss, Hades allowed Aphrodite to bring back with her a measure of the waters of the Lethe from the deepest part of the spring that fed this river of the waters of forgetfulness. Perhaps Hades had hoped that the cool waters of the Lethe would banish even the memories of a god. From these waters, Aphrodite made a medicine which erased Eros' memories, especially his memories of Psyche. She had hoped that after taking the medicine, he would forget his pain and return to his old self. However, he grew even more morose and his physical condition became far worse, and he had no idea why he felt that way.

This was the end of the love story of Eros and Psyche, considered in classic human literature to be one of the greatest tragedies that was ever spawned by the Greek world.


	2. Once Upon A Sidewalk

_I wanted to pick a real city to set this story in, because it would make this story more real. Sadly my experience of major international cities is limited. Finally I decided to pick a place that is a mix of a few cities I do know well. IF some things sound odd to you, remember, this is not set where you live… (when I say live.. I mean in a Westernized, industrial, urban settling… which this is not…) the place in question does exist and the inhabitants speak a kind of pidgin English that is incomprehensible to non-native speakers, as well as the dialects of several major languages…_

 _For this story, everyone speaks like they come from jolly old England or where have you… in order to make this comprehensible._

 _So take it as if all this was translated from the original language.. which is a mystery X… I had to change quite a lot of details because otherwise this place will become quite recognizable to the people who do live there… and yes, they do come to this site…._

* * *

 _Vanessa did not like the neighbourhood that she_ moved to, but she had no choice. Rent in Cessville was the cheapest anywhere in the city. She peeked out of the dingy window which was covered with a flowery but threadbare piece of curtain. She was glad that her only window faced a side street and not the main road that ran through Cessville. It was quiet at least and she was not able to see the neon signs on the main street that advertised the location of every bar and strip club in Cessville, especially the too bright, oversized sign of the "Venus Inn," the largest business in Cessville and a motel run by a crippled invalid who had lived in Cessville for as long as anyone could remember.

Vanessa remembered running into him a few days ago when she stopped by the local convenience store for some groceries. She had loaded the canned food and milk into her shopping bags and had just stepped out of the store when a large wheel nearly ran over her toes.

"Oh!" she nearly dropped the bags that she was carrying.

The wheelchair that clattered past her and painfully made a swipe at her hip screeched to a stop. She could tell that it was a rather new and nice model, in fact it seemed rather out of place in a neighbourhood where every other thing was dilapidated, torn or used too many times.

A man who was wearing a grey hoodie with a particularly deep hood sat in this out-of-place wheelchair. Vanessa realized that he had stopped because a newspaper wrapped package tumbled from his lap onto the pavement and he was using a cane that was lodged to the side of his wheelchair to move it nearer to where he was sitting.

Vanessa watched as he shuffled the package to the foot of the wheelchair and then leaned down rather painfully to grab a hold of it. However, no matter how hard he tried, he was not able to fish up the news-wrapped package.

Finally, in frustration, the hooded man raised his head and looked around. For the rest of her life, Vanessa would never forget what she saw next.

In an almost surreal moment, a man who sat in his chair, slumped in a despondent position and almost bent double looked up and around him. As his hooded face turned to look in her direction, she gasped in amazement. He was wearing a mask, a leather one that covered his entire face, even the shape of his mouth.

"Hey!" he called to her in a tone that was harsh, almost commanding. "Hey! Come over here!"

To her utter amazement, he pulled out a crumpled dollar bill and waved it at her.

"Come over here right now!"

She went over, bent down, picked up the package and dumped it onto his lap, then turned to move away quickly. He grabbed her hand and pushed the dollar bill into it. In annoyance, Vanessa pushed his hand away and thew the crumpled dollar into his face.

She felt like shouting at him, but it did not seem appropriate to be shouting at a pathetic but very nasty man on a wheel chair, but she did not like the way he waved the dollar at her too. What did he think she was? A cheap hooker, similar to the ladies who stood around the street corners near "Venus Inn"?

He kept shouting at her as she turned and walked off in the opposite direction. She had no idea what he was saying, but it sounded nasty enough for people to walk out of the sidewalk stores to stare at the commotion.


	3. The Venus Inn

"Bitch!"

Eric shouted as loudly as he could. People in the stores that lined the sidewalk poured out to see what the commotion was about. When he noticed that his antics had caused more commotion that he had anticipated, he quickly fumbled around his lap, grabbing a hold of the crumpled dollar she had flung in his face and stuffed it into his pocket.

In the process, he caught sight of himself in the reflection of a store window. He quickly turned away as fast as he could. It was almost too close. He nearly caught sight of his own face in the reflective glass. His heart was beating furiously and anxiously. He had not seen his own reflection in so long he had no memory of how he looked. He could not and must not look at his own reflection. It was an action that filled him with fear to discover that he was a monster.

His eyes fell upon the package that she had dumped into his lap. He made sure that the newspaper-wrapped package was securely nestled on his lap before he pushed the lever that moved his motorized wheelchair along the pavement.

He pulled the edge of his hood to hide his face. He had been too careless, the people would have seen his horrible face. He looked down at the pavement as he zoomed along the pavement towards the "Venus Inn." He wondered if the package was okay. It contained a porcelain figure that he had bought at a thrift store along one of the many streets of Cessville.

He sped quickly along the pavement till he came to the corner of a side street. He turned down this narrow street and zoomed along till he came to a small door at the top of a short ramp that was hurriedly knocked together from bits of plywood.

This was the staff entrance to "Venus Inn." In fact, the motel was the only building in all of Cessville that had handicap access, which often consisted of bits of wood knocked together to create access ramps.

He moved the wheelchair up the ramp and went through the door into a grey, unpainted lobby where he took a slow-moving lift up to the floor where he had his own private room.

His own room was located on a floor where there were no guestrooms and consisted of a few doors leading to the hotel's administrative offices and a room filled with close circuit TV monitors, which was his own personal office.

Eric did not actually run things at the "Venus Inn" although his signature was necessary on documents, cheques and invoices issued by the motel. Most of the day-to-day administration was carried out by Greg Morton, his personal assistant with regards to the business and the face that all the vendors and staff spoke to with regards to the business. Some 10 or so years ago, his mother had set up this motel when she realized that Eric's "condition" rendered him incapable of leading a more or less normal life as an independent young male adult.

Moreover, he had spent time in an asylum for quite a number of years and before that, in a prison. His record alone would have made it quite difficult for Eric to find a normal job.

Eric quickly slipped into his room and began unwrapping the package. He was so worried that the figurine got broken when it fell onto the pavement. He breathed a deep sigh of relief when he saw that it had not snapped in half and that it was intact, more or less.

Another man might have brushed aside the chipped finger of the figure, but the tiny chip irritated Eric so much he screamed loudly in annoyance. He wanted this figure to be perfect. The figure in question was of an archer in princely attire with a noble, handsome visage and his finger resting beside his arrow that was notched to the bow.

The door of his room opened suddenly, he had been expecting Greg to come rushing in.

"Are you ok, Mr Marsson?" Greg's head popped through the door anxiously.

"Just get me a tube of super glue!" Eric replied in annoyance. He searched the wrapping and found a tiny bit of porcelain that had fallen off from the statue. He was so upset by the entire episode, that without realizing it, he had begun to cry. He had searched so hard and for a long time to find the perfect statue. It was almost an emotional relief when he found it.

Greg came back a few minutes later with an old tube of superglue that he managed to scrounge up from the bottom of a drawer. He handed it to Eric, who did not so much as raise his head to look at the man. This was quite normal as Eric did not like to have to look at anyone in the face because then they would be looking at him in his face.

He patiently sat at the table where his entire porcelain collection was laid out and attempted to glue the broken piece back. It took him well over an hour. In the end, the best he managed was a huge lump of crystalizing glue stuck onto the finger of the archer, which really made it look odd. It would have been far better had he left it entirely alone.

Frustrated that the figure was less than perfect, he positioned it carefully on the table where his porcelain statuette collection was displayed. He placed the archer in front of a cardboard throne in the cardboard "palace" he had constructed for the figure.

Then he sat back and admired the scene for a while. He had this in his mind for quite some time now and was happy to see that it was now a reality. He took the cardboard "stand-in" prince he had constructed long ago and dropped it into the wastepaper basket.

He wanted to play with the figure that he had bought, but decided that he would go to the office and do his "job." He had been neglecting it for quite some time now.

The moment he got into the actual office and sat at his desk, he began to remember why it was that he neglected it in the first place. There wasn't really anything much for him to do, except to sign a few documents and read Greg's reports which were really quite similar from month to month.

The main income from the "Venus Inn" came from the streetwalkers who dotted the streets outside the motel. They would come in with their clients for an hour or two and then leave and be back again later in the day or at night. Hardly anyone ever fully stayed overnight at the motel. The café downstairs which was part of the motel was the only business in the entire inn that was busy throughout the day and in much of the night. In the daytime, it catered to the guests of the inn and customers who walked off the street. In the night, it was a hangout for streetwalkers and cops who patrolled the streets of Cessville. Greg noticed the trend and had a nicely stocked doughnut and coffee bar installed as soon as he noticed the first wave of cops coming in from night time patrols of the crime-ridden streets.

Apart from the café, much of the motel's interior looked dingy and old with yellowing wallpaper in certain places that were not heavily frequented by patrons. Although there were no odd smells because Greg had a strictly scheduled cleaning routine in place, there was a real need to replace many of the items in the motel. However, in the interest of saving costs, hardly anything in the motel was ever replaced until it was clearly obvious that it was unusable and unsalvagable.

By 3pm in the afternoon, Eric was yawning. Soon he would have to start his "night shift," he left the office and headed to his room to take a short nap before the evening.

Although he hardly ever had a sound few hours of sleep, the moment his eyes snapped shut, Eric found himself instantly transported to the sidewalk where he met the unpleasant woman that morning. In an instant, almost the blink of an eye, he was at the sidewalk, screaming loudly at the impudent woman.

"Bitch!"

She did not respond to the insult. He saw people coming out of the stores and they were all staring at him. Staring at him in a disgusted manner.

He felt anger rising inside of him. How dare she stand in his way! How dare she cause his package to fall to the ground and chip his precious statue! How dare she take hold of his money and throw it back in his face with vehement scorn! Did she not know who he was?

Who was he anyway? The question seemed to hang in the air, so dense and corporeal that it almost floated visibly overhead, so he could see it like a cloud over him.

However, the anger he felt got the better of him and he ignored the hanging question. Instead, he grabbed a hold of his stout cane and forced himself to stand. Amazingly, though he had not stood in the better part of the last 15 or so years, he felt his feet touch the ground and he stood up straight, as if he still had use of his limbs.

He stumbled towards her unsteadily, lifted his stout cane and struck her heavily on her side. She felt down in a crumpled heap.

Unsupported by his cane, Eric fell backwards and found himself falling, but in an instant, there was a strange sensation that he was unused to and he was now floating in the air. The impudent woman crawled towards him painfully and grabbed hold of his legs, almost in a posture of supplication.

She was now crying and saying something. He did not know what it was she was saying. The language was unintelligible to him. She looked up into his face, his eyes. He looked away, unable to bear her large, doe-like eyes on his face.

 _Impossible!_ He thought. He focused hard to comprehend what she was saying, but he could not understand the words. _This is not possible!_ There was this odd notion that he should somehow be able to comprehend all spoken tongues.

She wept and buried her face in his thighs. He looked down and saw that his thighs were bare. In fact, he was not wearing anything at all!

He tried to brush her aside, but her soft skin felt so good against his thighs that he relaxed and enjoyed that rare moment of adoration. Yes, that was the right word, "adoration." She caressed him as if he was the most beautiful thing in the world.

The scene then shifted crazily and Eric found himself in a dark place and the impudent woman was under him, struggling, writhing, panting as he ground against her furiously.

All kinds of strange and yet strangely familiar sensations exploded in his senses. He was feeling good, really really good and there was a fire in his belly, and it seemed to burn hotter than the sun.

He longed deeply for her and missed her terribly. And there was a great sorrow in his heart that he did not understand. The scene lasted a mere few seconds, but the emotions that it awakened in Eric were so strong he awoke from his nap crying.


	4. Blowjobs and Blackheads

Eric's face was wet with tears when he woke up. He leaned over and looked at clock on the small night stand. It was 6pm. He had barely an hour to wash up, get dressed, get his dinner before he started his "night shift."

He did not ponder too much about the dream, except wonder why it was that an erotic dream about some girl bothered him so much. He had long ago given up trying to find someone who liked him enough to be his girlfriend. He had enough to think about in his life.

He often wondered if his mother might get fed up of him and throw him out onto the street. He thought his erstwhile "father" might be inclined to support his mother's decision, since he never hid his own disdain regarding Eric's lifestyle, should it ever come to that. Eric had no idea how he might support himself. He had no education, no skills and certainly no work experience outside of the "Venus Inn."

Eric's room was specially altered to suit his needs. It had all sorts of handles sticking out of the walls so he could support himself when he needed to get into bed or go to the bathroom. Oftentimes he wished he could just move around on his own. He tried hard to remember a time when he could walk normally, but no matter how he tried, he could not remember himself walking. Sometimes he had flights of fancy when a fantastic image of himself flying in the clouds popped into his head. However, he dismissed all strange notions from his mind, he had to remain grounded in reality. His reality was a grim and rather sordid one and he needed to know how he could survive in it without being clouded by useless fantasies.

He was glad for one thing at least. He was able to use the bathroom unassisted. The initial training required him to go for a lot of physiotherapy, but through his mother's determination and his own desire for some form of independence, he managed to keep this part of his life dependence free. He was quite happy that he always had strong arms. He liked his privacy and it would have been a terrible blow to him if he needed assistance using the bathroom or the shower.

He pulled himself up using the handles and managed to prop himself gingerly onto a special seat that stood in the shower so he could shower alone without assistance. All knobs and device controls were situated where he could reach them while seated without much difficulty.

There were no mirrors and minimum of reflective surfaces in the bathroom. Since he was inflicted with his illness, he had stopped looking at all reflective surfaces completely, he could not bear the sight of himself in any mirror. As he was soaping himself up, he reached around to soap his back and his fingers brushed against something odd, it was sharp, not like a nail or the edge of broken glass, but sharp like a bristle. After feeling around for a bit, his fingers found a strange abnormally sticking out of his back. It felt like a bristle or growth and formed some sort of pimple-like lump. Eric sighed. It was likely a pimple or a large blackhead that was growing out from the skin of his back. He had a few when growing up and he was a teenager with acne and relatively oily facial skin. He pressed the sides of the lump and something seemed to be coming out. He tried squeezing it out, but it was terribly difficult to reach around. He finally gave up and slumped against one of the walls of the shower, but oddly enough this "blackhead" seemed to be poking back into his flesh. He reached around again and felt it. It seemed rather hard and was slightly flexible. Eric sighed. It was likely a monster blackhead!

He quickly rinsed and dried and then pulled himself out of the shower to his wheelchair in the room. He pulled on a pair of pants and shirt, but found that the odd object poked through the fabric of his shirt. Finally, in frustration, he pulled off his shirt and began prodding the odd "blackhead" on his back. Squeezing the sides of the pimple hard, he felt great relief when the odd bristly thing finally popped out. Eric managed to get a hold of it and put it down on a nearby table. It was very small, and did not look at all like a blackhead. In fact, it was yellowish and translucent. And was hollow, almost like the shaft of a small piece of feather. It was definitely organic and not some foreign object that had gotten embedded in his back.

Horrified, he felt around his back and located the hole which the object popped out from. His fingers located a rather large hole, not large enough to fit his finger in, but large enough so he could actually feel it. Wondering if he had done himself some harm, he grabbed his phone and angled it so it took a picture of his own back.

The photo showed his fair and lightly freckled back and what appeared to be a larger-than-normal hole caused by the exit of the "blackhead" on his back.

Examining the object as carefully as he could, Eric determined that it was not alive and was as hard as a bristle, and thicker than the normal bristles on a brush, but was also flexible. It looked so much like a tiny piece of feather, he wondered if some bird could have planted it there by accident.

He moved his wheelchair over to a small laptop computer he owned and looked online for information about bristle coming out of the back. There was of course, no information at all, except in avian species.

Eric looked over at the clock on the night stand and realized that with all the fussing about the bristle, it was almost 7. He dressed as quickly as he could and dialed the kitchen to bring up his dinner. In a few minutes, his door rang and when he opened it, a chambermaid came in with a covered dish and a glass of iced water on a tray. She placed it on a small mobile table that sort of resembled the mobile tables that a lot of hospitals have at the bed side and made sure that the tabletop was comfortably situated over the wheelchair handles.

After she left, he pulled off the metal cover and found a dish of grilled chicken breast and fries with a side of some kind of green salad.

He always ate alone in his room and never had any guests over because he had to remove his leather mask to eat. His mother suggested a half mask that would allow him to eat and drink at least when in public or with guests, but he did not like the idea of people looking at his twisted lips. Nevertheless, she had it made and he tossed it into a drawer as soon as she left.

He ate his dinner mechanically, he did not really enjoy eating. His meals were always alone and he merely ate it out of necessity. He actually felt that the food did not quite provide him with the nutrition that he needed. He had no idea why he felt that way, it was just how he felt. Feelings, as far as he was concerned, had no logical basis and he paid little heed to them.

He replaced the cover on the plate when he was done and dialed for the maid to come up and take away his dinner tray.

He was definitely "late for work." However, realistically, he knew at the back of his mind that it hardly mattered since is mother would never really fire him. The "night shift" was the one true responsibility that he had in the "Venus Inn." He moved his wheelchair to the next room beside his where a dozen or more close circuit TV monitors were hooked up along with a phone and pre-programmed numbers for the various hotel staff, such as the cleaning division and more importantly, security.

His job was to monitor the close circuit TVs. The truth about the "Venus Inn" was that there was surveillance in every single room, hallway and even café in the entire establishment. His "father" insisted on the security feature, he was as paranoid as every other person in his profession and since the "Venus Inn" was located in a rough neighbourhood, he felt that it was necessary.

There was another separate and identical set up in the security room downstairs were the night guard was stationed. However, Eric's personal security set up was entirely his mother's idea. She felt that the redundancy was needed and extra eyes were always better for the sake of safety. Also, she said to Eric with a wink, that he would enjoy the view it afforded him. Eric remembered his "father" rolling his eyes when she made that remark.

"Well, don't you think Eric should be at least partly responsible for what happens in his motel?" she remarked to his "father." He remembered with some pleasure that his "father", Ethan Marsson, shut up.

From his monitors, Eric could see everything that happened inside the motel, even inside the individual rooms. It would have been a pornographer's dream, if Eric was ever interested in becoming one. However, he had long ago abandoned all interest in sex and he viewed all the scenes he saw with a dispassion and disinterest that most priests hoped they had. He watched all that transpired, down to the last intimate detail, with an immovable and adamantine serenity.

This evening was pretty much the same as any other evening where he sat at the monitors. He flipped on the switch and made a quick sweep of all the monitors. Nothing seemed out of place. He watched as a man strolled in with one of the streetwalkers who hung around outside the motel. They went to the counter, paid for a room for a few hours and then headed upstairs. He watched uninterested as they proceeded to strip, shower and then engage in various sexual antics.

Eric rolled his eyes. This time he actually caught himself doing it. He had no idea why he felt the way he did. He thought the man appeared overeager and rather clumsy and would have benefitted from having better arm muscles. He turned to another screen and saw another man using his tongue against one of the other girls' nipples. The guy obviously had a nipple or breast fetish he thought absentmindedly.

Eric sat up in his chair. He never realized it before, but he had some very odd and critical thoughts running around his head. He never knew he had them, but quite obviously it was not the first time he had those thoughts.

He turned away from the room screens and focused on the café. His eyes fell on a woman who entered the café. She seemed rather familiar and then he realized that it was the same woman he had an altercation with the other day. He felt anger and all sorts of emotions rushing to the forefront of his mind. He wanted to go down and confront her. He wanted her to say something to him. Anything at all, preferably an apology, and something else.

 _Kiss me_ , he thought. He wasn't even aware that he said those two words secretly inside his head.

He moved his eyes and it fell upon a man sitting at a table beside the impudent woman. The man seemed rather familiar, but he knew that he had never seen this particular person before.

 _M- F- sadist_ , he thought rather nastily.

Eric sat bolt upright. He stared at the man again. And again the same thought passed his mind. He was with one of the streetwalkers. A girl he knew as Blondie. She had fake platinum blond hair and had obviously been hired by this fellow for an evening romp.

He watched the man take his last sip of the coffee and they walked to the reception area where they got a room.

 _Not too much time now…_ Eric thought. He quickly picked up the phone and dialed the night security team. He felt a kind of timer going off in his head. It was counting down the seconds of Blondie's life. He met the team at the lift lobby and led them up to the room that Blondie had gone with the man. He did not have to say much to the team, Eric seldom came down himself unless the situation was bad enough. It was a dangerously troublesome patron. They asked him no questions, having been trained by Ethan Marsson to read their employer's body language, and followed their crippled employer to the door of the room.

There were some noises coming from the room, but that was normal considering the type of guests who checked in. The timer in Eric's head was counting downwards rapidly now. He indicated for the security team to open up the door with the spare key they always carried.

Just in time, they pounced upon the man, who was standing behind a kneeling Bondie, choking her with a garrote made of some nylon string and a stick.

The man screamed out in horrified surprise as several of the guards jumped on him. They wrestled him down to the carpet and restrained him. It caused such a huge commotion that semi-naked people in bathrobes were poking their heads out of the other doors to see what had happened. Quite soon, a few cops popped out of the lift, having been alerted to the situation by the hotel staff. It was late at night and the usual crowd of policemen had stopped by on their rounds for doughnuts and coffee.

Soon enough, the cops were pushing the man, down the hallway and into a patrol car. There was a huge commotion and Eric grit his teeth hard, pulling his hood over his head. People were staring at all of them, and he felt, that they were looking at him in particular.

Most likely, he would get a visit from his "dad" in the next few days. He never liked meeting the man, but his mother would insist on the visit. She really did not like Cessville, and was at times overbearingly protective.

Eric went back to the privacy of his surveillance monitoring room as soon as he had given his statement to the police. When asked about why he had decided to descend upon the room when he did, Eric merely said that he had noticed this same person coming by the inn before, and that he had been a little too rough with some of the girls. Of course he was not naïve enough to say that he had acted on hearing a little voice in his head. He had been in an asylum, telling people that he was taking instruction from voices in his head was a bad thing.

He stayed in his little isolated room for a few hours and later decided to move out and down to the café to get a bit of their fresh brewed coffee. As he passed by a table, he noticed that Blondie had returned and was sitting rather unhappily at the table.

He was not too sure why he did what he did next. He rolled up to the table and asked if she was all right.

She glanced at him with a slightly sour expression.

"I've been with him before, Steve's never really hurt anyone. He's just a little rough, that's all."

"You could have died."

"Nah," she shook her head a little, a slender hand went up to the neck unconsciously to cover the bruise caused by the garrote on her pale skin. "He was just playin' "

Eric pulled out a bill.

Blondie reached over to grab it and then stopped.

"I don't need your money, Mr Marsson," she appeared hurt. "I just need to find another customer, fast."

"I want you to blow me."

She stared at him for the longest time, uncertain to make of what she was hearing. Then she took his bill, got up and followed him as he rolled out of the café.

"You do know, Blondie," he said rather quietly when they were in the lift going up. "That you should never follow a stranger in a mask to a lonely place, right?"

"You aren't a stranger, Mr Marsson," she said. "I've known you my entire life, most people here have."

He found an empty office upstairs without surveillance cameras and Blondie got down on the floor in front of him. Eric's hands shook incessantly as he fiddled around with the zipper on his pants.

"It's okay, Mr Marsson," she put her hand on his. "I'll get it out myself."

Blondie was amazingly skillful when it came to getting his dick out of his pants. She looked at it and then went, "huh."

"What's the matter?"

"It's amazingly… young-looking… for a guy of your age," she said, surprised at the appearance of his dick.

"Well, I think it should look like that for a guy my age."

"Well, it looks like it would be on a young man, in his 20s or 30s."

"Of course," he had no idea what she was talking about.

"Is there something wrong with it?"

"No! No…. its just, I didn't expect to see this…."

She quickly put her lips to it, and began stroking him vigourously. In fact rather too vigourously.

"Oh..ow… you might want to be gentler."

"Well, a lot of guys your age tend to need it stronger…"

"I aren't that old, and I do not have any form of dysfunction in that area."

"How old are you, Mr Marsson? Sixty, seventy?"

"What?! No…. I am quite young, jus approaching 30."

She paused for quite awhile with a puzzled expression on her face. Then replied, "Oh… of course… Mr Marsson…"

It had been such a long time since he had been with anyone, Eric almost forgot what it all felt like. He began moaning softly as he sucked him, teasing his sensitive head.

He was quite surprised when she swallowed his entire load. There was also an equally surprised look on her face.

"It tastes… odd."

"I'm so sorry about it," he said, grabbing a box of tissues. "We could have just cleaned up, you didn't have to swallow it."

"No, its not bad," she said rather soothingly. "Sort of like some kind of honey… and just a tiny bit salty…"

He was quite confused.

"Er, I am glad you like it."

"I mean it is so sweet you can use it on coffee."

None of this made any sense at all.

"Are you high?" he looked at her oddly.

"No, why do you ask?"

He sent her downstairs after that. Blondie went back to the street corner where she usually hung out. He made a mental note to occasionally invite Blondie up for another session.

The rest of the "night shift" ended without incident. At around 6 in the morning, he went back to his private room and slept a little, before taking a shower. He fondled his dick a little while soaping it up, and wondered if he should do more than just blowjobs with the girl.

Eric remembered his monster "blackhead" from yesterday and took a picture of his back. He nearly fainted when he looked at it.

The hole from yesterday had almost disappeared, but he now had dozens of similar-looking "blackheads" dotting his back in two distinct areas around his shoulder blades.


	5. Of Feathers and Inconsistencies

_Dear people who read this story, I would like to be able to see some feedback about this story. I am rather surprised this site has so few reviews… I have also posted this story on fictionpress and it has already garnered reviews…. Not very in depth stuff but at least a reaction to the descriptions in the story…. Or to the plight of the character in question…._

 _So I kind of want to know a few things. Is the hero of this story too far removed from your experience for you to understand what he is going through? Find identifying difficult? Is the crowd here too young for the tone of this story? I am aware I am not a young person any more, thus I have a different view of life and stuff… this does translate over to my stories…. Is it that as a young person you find it hard to identify with this story.. are tales like "The Hunger Games" or "Twilight" are more ur speed and stories abt crippled losers struggling with career and self-confidence issues not ur thing? (I thought that with the current economy.. many ppl would have similar challenges in career and job prospects.)_

 _Would this be better for you set in the highschool/teens settling? Cos the issues of Eric are too close to the street for your taste? He's not godly enough? He's highly unlikable? What?_

 _I mean … would you rather see ultra godly, heroic figures and not everyday people? Or is Fanfiction more a site for fangirling and we can all fuck original content…._

 _I mean.. I wanna know if this lack of response is cos of a generational gap or a disconnect in writer-audience ( at least I can stop expecting to see any reviews at all and take this story off Fanfiction)…._

 _Trying to understand the people who are reading this stuff. I have a feeling that I am at quite a different space than a lot of the people here on this site. So there might be issues of communicating ideas…_

 _I am being as frank as I can here cos I don't believing in dropping hints…. Cos duh I dun want to keep people guessing about how I feel or what I mean when I say something…._

* * *

Eric sat at the doctor's office with his nose in a Playboy. The wait was longer than he had anticipated. It was two, almost three hours and the queue only seemed to be getting longer.

His life was somber, mundane and even tediously depressing up until a week ago when he found the curious-looking blackheads and had a private session with Blondie. In three days, he found out quite a number of things about himself that really surprised him. He realized after a short period of self-observation, that was rather dirty minded, in fact, extremely dirty minded. He would look at people in wonder what they would look like without clothes. He could tell if a person, man or woman had recently made love or not. In fact, the ubiquous shape of a heart seen on every box of valentine candies reminded him of the full butt of a woman when she bent down, with the round humps as the butt and the sloping sides as her legs as she stood in position with her butt towards him.

On the second day, he began touching himself. He realized that he missed the sensation of soft hands on his body and would run his own hands up and down his own body where no one was around. In fact, because of his growing fetish with touching, he often took off all his clothes in the privacy of his own room so he could enjoy stroking himself better. He also began to desire having someone to hug when he was sleeping. At first, he got his biggest, fluffiest pillow and hugged it to sleep, then, after he woke up one morning kissing the pillow passionately, he went out and got the biggest, softest teddy bear with the nicest fur he could find and found it a better substitute. He almost got Blondie up from her street corner early one morning so she could lie in bed with him. Naturally, he also started sleeping naked.

Last of all, he could not stop making passes at every single woman and some young men that he met. It was so bad that he simply stopped talking to people, in case he slipped up and asked some stranger to snuggle up with him.

Eric was horrified by his increasingly forward behavior. It just wasn't him. Or at least the person he remembered himself to be. It was terribly embarrassing and he felt like a giant pervert.

On the third day after Blondie, he went out and got himself a huge stack of Playboys. He actually wondered why he did not have any of them in his room.

Finally, when he started to clip and comb his pubic hair, he realized that something was definitely off. Also, the number of "blackheads" was increasing and some of these "blackheads" even started protruding from his skin, causing a somewhat bumpy effect. At first he tried removing them, but stopped because there were just too many of them. He did not get anyone to help him out with them because he was terrified of someone finding out about his "condition".

He tried searching the internet for an answer to his problem, but all search attempts and questions to people on medical issues forums turned out dead ends.

Eventually, he decided to go see a doctor. His usual doctor was his uncle, Aston Alexopoulos, but he decided to see someone outside the family so he could keep his secret from his mother. He did not want her, or Ethan to come swooping down on his miserable life and scrutinizing him like he was a freak.

He picked a clinic in Cessville that offered anonymous blood testing for Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and waited for the resident doctor to see him.

After informing the receptionist that he was here to see the doctor and not for an "anonymous" blood test, she handed him a form to fill up, which he did in a few minutes. When he handed it back to her, she looked over it with raised eyebrows and asked, "Can I see some identification please?"

He fumbled around his purse and finally pulled out his worn and batted identity card, which he had not looked at in years.

"You will have to take off your mask in the doctor's office, for purposes of identification," she said as a matter of routine. "And you've incorrectly filled in your age."

She pointed at the portion of the card that stated his date of birth. Eric was quite shocked to find out that he was 75 years old.

"I sort of spotted it immediately, Mr Marsson," she said in a chatty, offhanded manner. "I mean I grew up in Cessville and I've been seeing you around this neighbourhood since I was 8."

Eric was relieved when she returned him his identity card. A voice in his head prompted him to not go ahead with the doctor visit. He sat anxiously waiting in the lobby, examining his card very carefully. He did not recall memories of the day he got his card, but he always carried it in his wallet.

He stared at the date in confusion. He was sure that he was only about 30 and it was all a huge mistake. He wondered why he did not check the accuracy of the date when he first got his card. It made no sense at all.

He looked at his date of birth several times, just to be sure. It was printed clear as day. He was around 75 years old to the day. He flipped the card over and saw his own face on the other side. It was a face of himself as a younger person, but there was no doubt about it, it was his card. He felt a tear form in his eye when he saw his own face. He wondered how he looked at the moment, he had not seen his own face in over 20 years. However, he did not roll over to the bathroom to look into the mirror. It was just too much for him to bear.

In the meantime, the feeling that he got of skipping this doctor's visit kept growing.

"Mr Marsson!" the doctor exclaimed as soon as he rolled into the consulting room. Apparently there was no way for him to remain fully anonymous in an anonymous testing clinic. "What can I do for you today?"

"I have a skin condition on my back that needs to be looked at."

"Sir, I will need you to remove your mask for identification purposes and so that you'll feel more comfortable during the examination."

Eric hesitated.

"I assure you, Mr Marsson," the doctor reassured him. "All details of this visit will be kept confidential."

"It was many years back, they found out that I had this hereditary condition. I have open sores and lesions on my face. The mask was to protect the sores. Most of it has dried up and closed a long time ago, but the scars have remained," Eric volunteered the information because of the doctor's puzzled expression.

He took off the mask carefully.

The doctor stared hard at the tiny picture on the card and then stared at Eric's face for comparison.

"Are you Eric Marsson?"

"Yes…. Yes, I am."

"How old are you?"

"30."

The doctor looked at him in confusion.

"There is a mistake on that card. They printed my birthday wrong. I did not notice it when I got it."

"Well sir, even if there is a printing error on the card," the doctor was now looking very confused. "There is nothing wrong with your face…"

"What do you mean?"

"I am saying, I do not see any signs of there having been any sort of scar or lesion on your face. You have the most beautiful skin I have seen on anyone, man or woman in my entire career."

He went over to a table and grabbed a small standing mirror, which he brought over to Eric. "Perhaps you might want to have a look…. You are an… exceptionally good-looking individual…"

Eric turned his face away quickly. He could not bear to look into the mirror that the physician had placed on the table before him. He curled up in terror and shouted, "No! No! Take it away!"

He was crying like a child.

Iits okay, Mr Marsson," he said rather quietly to Eric, "I have removed the mirror."

It took a few minutes before Eric was able to look at the doctor again.

"Are you currently on any kind of medication, Mr Marsson?"

The doctor carefully noted down the psychiatric drugs that Eric was taking, almost as an answer to certain of his unspoken queries.

"Do you still go for appointments with the doctor who prescribed them to you?"

"Yes… Yes, I do," he replied, relieved to see that the confusion on the doctor's face had disappeared. "Can you look at the thing on my back now?"

The attending physician helped him off his wheelchair onto an examination bed where he lay flat on his tummy. After pulling up his shirt to allow the doctor to see his back, he felt the physician put something cold on his back, like a sort of instrument or scope.

"I'm going to put some warm towels on your back to try and soften the skin for an extraction of one of the "blackheads", Mr Marsson. Just hold on for a bit."

He felt warm towel on his back and then the extraction took a minute. It felt like the doctor was squeezing a particular spot gently n he felt something pop out. The doctor dropped the object into a plastic container and then he felt a ticklish sensation on the soles of his feet. He curled his toes.

"Stop it!" He snapped.

"Did you feel it, Mr Marsson?"

"The blackheads are not on my soles!"

"I'm just a little curious, Mr Marsson, you mentioned in the form that you have some type of muscular dystrophy... Well, what type is it?"

"I don't know the name."

"You see, I have been looking at your back carefully. As far as I can tell without asking you to take off your pants, you have muscular legs that show no sign of atrophy. Unless you have injured your spine, there is no reason for your lack of ability to use your legs. When I helped you onto the bed, I swear you shifted your legs just a tiny bit, all on your own. You do have issues with spinal alignment... One of your scapula, that's your shoulder bone, seems to be protruding just a little more than the other and seems oddly shaped."

Eric was shocked. He said nothing.

"If you will allow me, sir, I can help you make an appointment with an ostheopath who is very good and can give you a second opinion. If there are no serious structural issues, you might with therapy, be able to walk again."

"I do not want anyone to know about this," he said quietly. '"That is why I came to see you."

"I am going to send the thing that we extracted for testing, just to rule out common skin-related viruses. But to be honest it does look like a piece of bird feather."

"Do I have an STD?"

"Not likely. You do not have any of the symptoms…"

"What is it?"

"Likely some form of virus affecting the skin and/or DNA, causing the growth of warts, even warts that are rough and horn-like. This is not unheard of, although I have never heard of it causing the growth of feather-like protrusions. There is a high chance this might turn out to be a genetic condition of some sort."

He patted Eric on the back, "Don't worry about a thing, stressing out about these sort of things usually makes it worse. Try not to squeeze these "blackheads" out on your own because most people that try to do it usually press too hard and cause damage to the surrounding tissue."

"Is there no medication I can take?"

"We do not know what it is, yet. Come back in a week and I'll have answers for you. In the meantime, just keep the area clean and moisturize it, which might help soften the skin around the area and you will feel more comfortable."

Eric left the clinic rather glad that it was not some kind of STD. He was afraid that he had caught some kind of illness from his interaction with Blondie. However, Blondie seemed healthy and was "monster blackhead" free as far as he could tell.

However, the first thing that he did when he got back, was to lie down in his bed and curl himself up. He rolled over onto his side and flexed his toes. Then he started to bend his knees and bring them up towards his chest. He started to do this almost every hour from different positions the moment he discovered that he could move his legs. On the second day, he tried to stand up, but collapsed on the ground and at best managed to get himself into a crawling position. He did that a few times and then managed to crawl awkwardly around his room.

In spite of his initial optimism and relief from visiting the clinic, the "blackheads" kept multiplying and in a week, some of these "blackheads" actually started to protrude from the skin and took on the appearance of very fine and fluffy down feathers. Eric ended up with two patches of fluffy, whitish feathers on the shoulder blades of his back. He took photos of them in order to keep a record of the "progression" of his "disease."


End file.
